


You call it justice. I call it vengeance.

by Ruta



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: 8x02, Badass Sansa Stark, F/M, Season Finale, Speculation, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-16 02:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18511906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruta/pseuds/Ruta
Summary: Sansa Stark doesn't smile her flawless, gracious  smile. Her face is serious and seems carved in stone, in the icy heart of winter itself."Just where you stand, my sister executed Petyr Baelish."(There  is no crime worse than one committed against an innocent.Or. How I hope Sansa deals with Jaime "trial" in 8x02)





	You call it justice. I call it vengeance.

  
After Daenerys opening line, silence descends upon the hall.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Jaime catches a movement. Tyrion is standing there, very close to the place of honor that his former queen occupies, and is observing her. His tense and frowning expression reminds him of himself on the day of his trial at King's Landing. Funny how the roles turned upside down. If he has to fall, he wants his fall to be spectacular. Isn't that one of the many reason why he is there?  
  
"Before being executed," he replies with a cunning smile and under the inclement glares of half of the fucking North, "I would like to know the crimes of which I am accused."  
  
"You killed the King you had sworn to serve and protect." It's exactly what he expected, so he cannot be surprised. Just annoyed by the predictable answer. "You dishonored your vows as a knight of the Kingsguard."  
  
"Don't you want to know why I did it? Your grace?" He adds at the last second, just for the sheer pleasure of provoking her. She narrows her eyes and purses her lips, clearly annoyed. Satisfied that he got exactly the reaction he wanted, he looks around again, but everywhere he encounters closed and patronizing expressions, solemn masks of cold severity. Even Brienne looks at him helpless and worn-out, as if he were a man already doomed. So this is how it ends his gold rush, his last hope of glory. "Am I not even allowed to defend myself?"  
  
Daenerys doesn't even blink. She is a ruthless, cruel, implacable judge. Of an intransigent inflexibility. "No."  
  
"Yes," immediately speaks another voice.  
  
He turns in the direction it came from, stunned both by the answer and by the person who spoke, interceding in his favor.  
  
Sansa Stark doesn't smile her flawless, gracious  smile. Her face is serious and seems carved in stone, in the icy heart of winter itself. "Just where you stand, my sister executed Petyr Baelish." A restless and subdued murmur begins to spread among those present after that careless declaration and Jon Snow's head snaps suddenly towards his sister. Sansa Stark turns not to meet the intense gaze of her bastard brother, but that much more penetrating of the queen.  
  
"Whatever crime he committed, we will not kill him without a trial," she says strongly. "It's not how we act here in the North."  
  
Daenerys raises both eyebrows. "It almost seems like you want to protect him."  
  
"Not at all," Sansa denies. "I act only in the way I believe right. We are at the end of the world we knew, ready to fight against an enemy whom no one believed to be real and any chances of victory being against us. If we no longer followed the law, what would prevent the smallfolk from doing the same? What would happen if it not cause disorder and the perception that there was no justice?"  
  
There is something screaming in a corner of his consciousness, gnawing. It's like observing something that he has already seen, listening to words already spoken repeated by new, young faces. Sansa Stark incredibly looks like her mother. Only a blind man wouldn't grasp the resemblance. It is in the pride of her features, in her haughtiness, in the ferocity with which she speaks and doesn't hold back against the attacks aimed at her. Fur and wolf teeth have sprung up the small dove and her defense is not to beat in retreat or parry the blows as best she can, but attack in turn. Here's who she reminds him. Not Catelyn Stark, poised and demure. Rather she is like Cersei, obstinate and indomitable, full of rage and passion.  
  
"Do you think he's innocent?"  
  
"I know he isn't," Sansa answers without a shadow of uncertainty, smiling with her eyes as if amused by the question, "but who really is among us?"  
  
Daenerys presses her lips, but for the moment she seems convinced not to interfere. "You heard Lady Stark," she says imperatively. "Speak, Jaime Lannister. Everyone knows the man you are. They call you the Kingslayer."  
  
"With reason. I killed your father. I did it and I would do it again a thousand other times." Once he starts talking, the words come up like water from a spring. These are the truths he held for over a decade.  
  
"What do you know of him? Of what he did? You talk about my crimes, but what do you know of his atrocities? Against his enemies, who he liked to shut up in bird cages and see them burn alive, to hear them scream until the stench of burnt flesh plagued the throne room? Or against the Queen, who used to beg him to stop, who sobbed every night she spent with him, to the point of losing her voice?" He takes a breath and then insists, pressing. "What were you told about him?"  
  
She lifts her chin. "I know he wasn't a good man."  
  
"He was crazy and sadistic." He twists his mouth in disgust. "He would have burned the whole world and as the only survivor he would have enjoyed his power, watching the ashes and rubble of it."  
  
"Wildfire," Sansa intervenes again, leaning forward. He can almost hear her mind working as she connects simple chatter with concrete facts. "King's Landing is full of them. During the battle of the Blackwater against Stannis Baratheon's army, wildfire was used."  
  
"I was there." Without being questioned, a man to his right takes the floor. "I got away only because one of the explosions threw me into the water."  
  
"I don't see what the wildfire has to do with my father," Daenerys replies dryly.  
  
"Lord Tyrion." Sansa Stark pronounces his name as if it contained a question.  
  
Tyrion sighs and pinches his nose with his fingers. "I know what you want to know. Most of the wildfire used during the siege was old. I found it scattered in secret places in the underground tunnels of the city." As he speaks he stiffens and when he turns to him, Jaime sees the understanding making his way into his brother's eyes. "That's why you killed him. What was he going to do?"  
  
Suddenly exhausted, he returns being a boy of six and ten, torn apart by the horror of being chained by duty to a visionary and the knowledge that regardless of his choice he would have becomed a murderer in the eyes of the world.  
  
"He would have blown up the city," he admits. "A million people and he would have killed all of us for the madness of a whim, to be reborn as a real dragon."  
  
"Do you expect us to believe you?"  
  
"There are so many things I am," he says with a sneer. "A traitor and a oathbreaker, but not a liar."  
  
"Even if it were true, it doesn't change what you did. Whatever the reasons, it was a dishonorable action. For me it is enough. A life for a life. It's only just."  
  
For a moment it looks like it's all there. It is the end and the guards will come soon to drag him away and throw him into a smelly cell.  
  
Then, once again, Sansa Stark speaks. "Stop," she says and, turning to Daenerys, "His life doesn't belong to you. A life for a life, you said."  
  
Daenerys doesn't hide any longer her irritation. "He tried to kill one of my dragons. He killed my father."  
  
"Because of his son I lost my direwolf," Sansa quickly replies. "It was always Joffrey who gave the order to kill my father. Your father was a King and he was guilty himself. My father was innocent and he was killed only because he had discovered an uncomfortable truth and showed clemency towards those who didn't deserve any."  
  
"So his life belongs to you? Is that what you're saying?"  
  
"No, not to me." Sansa shakes her head. "Jaime Lannister life belongs to my brother Bran."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Sansa hesitates a fraction of a second and her composure cracks imperceptibly, as if something made her falter. Her gaze wanders to the corner of the hall then returns determined. "Because he was the one who threw him from the tower, making him crippled. There is no crime worse than one committed against an innocent."  
  
When the guards step aside to reveal Bran Stark, Jaime would like to burst out laughing. Isn't fascinating how his every mistake has been hold against him?  
  
"So my life is in your hands, little lord," he says. "What are you going to do? I'm a cripple myself, but I don't think that's of any consolation to you. Even if it's somehow poetic, don't you think? The gods have a terrible sense of humor."  
  
Bran Stark's gaze retains nothing of the curious little boy he was. It pierces him as if he were made of air and is fixed on a point behind him. When he speaks, he doesn't address anyone in particular, but his words reach everyone, clear as much as enigmatic is who pronounces them.  
  
"Burn them all," he says and a cold shiver runs through his back, like the crash of a tree pierced by lightning. "You were there when he gave the order. The Mad King. He had just ordered you to kill your father. And so you did. You drew your sword and stuck it in his throat. You feared he would be reborn as a dragon as he had promised so you hit him five more times to make sure he was really dead. When my father arrived, you could have told him about the wildfire, but you didn't and so you rewrote your story."  
  
He is the only one who hasn't been turned speechless by the repulsion of the image just described. "I wasn't destined for the role of the hero," he mocks himself, but the irony sounds forced to his own ears and not abrasive as usual.  
  
"That day, when you pushed me from the tower, you didn't make me a cripple. You were just a tool. You freed what I had to become."  
  
Jaime raises an eyebrow. "And what exactly did you become?"  
  
"The Three-Eyed Raven. I can see the present, the past and the future. There is no event that escapes my sight."  
  
"It sounds to me like a curse."  
  
"It was my destiny as yours was to kill Aerys. Everyone has his story, his part."  
  
"And what will be mine from now on?" He asks.  
  
"The sword you carry," Bran replies, changing the whole subject. "It was my father's."  
  
"Half of it." He nods, holding back the temptation to look in Brienne's direction. "The other half belongs to the most honorable knight I know."  
  
There is something strange about Bran Stark. Looking at him too long can make your skin crawl. It's like looking at the bloody face of a heart tree.  
  
"Honor the oath you made to Catelyn Stark when she released you. This is my decision. This is what I want."  
  
Jaime glances past Daenerys Targaryen livid face and Jon Snow angry face, towards Sansa Stark. He slowly nods. After all it could have been worse.  
  
_His last chance for honor_.


End file.
